According to an email sent by Canete College dean David Byrd, the California school will be raising tuition by 6% for 2006-07.

“Our students wait eagerly each year to hear what the next tuition raise will be, and we refuse to let them down,” Byrd’s email read. “While not as outstanding as last year’s record-setting 7.5% raise, we are confident that 13.5% over two years ranks us among the elite schools in the nation with regard to tuition-raising, and we will not quit until we’re at the very top.”

Opinions among students were divided. Some believed that Canete was sincerely doing its level best to remain competitive in the tuition-raising race, which has become a point of pride among schools across the country in recent years. “My brother’s school only raised their tuition 3% this year,” said a Canete student who wished to remain anonymous. “He’s too ashamed to come home now and face me.”

In a special address at the “Tuition Raise the Roof” fundraising event this week, President Andrew Lynch cited the example of Brown University, whose tuition hike for 2006-07 reached 4.7%. “We can’t beat ‘em in academics, we can’t beat ‘em in sports, but darn it, we’re grinding those Ivy League jerks into the ground when it comes to tuition raises,” Lynch said. He then jabbed the air with a large foam finger and chanted “We’re number one!”

Others are not so optimistic. “6% is good, sure, but it seems sort of anticlimactic after last year’s raise,” one student said. “At this rate we’ll actually be lowering tuition within a few years, and that is unacceptable.”

Others cited figures in Byrd’s report that pointed to a lackluster overall showing for the last decade: “Over the past 10 years, the average increase for Canete University has been 4.3 percent,” according to Byrd’s email. “This is in comparison to Loyola Marymount University with a 5.6 percent average increase, Santa Clara with 6.2 percent, Stanford with 4.4 percent, and Vanderbilt with 4.8 percent.”

Byrd was quick to remind students that such anemic numbers were completely meaningless, as no student currently attending Canete has been at the school for ten years. “I don’t even know why I used those figures,” Byrd confessed in a follow-up email to the Canete students. “It was a dumb move on my part. It almost seems like I’m trying to convince students that our current tuition raises are lower than other schools by citing obsolete precedents, and I could never conscientiously do that.”

The school has released no specifics about where the extra tuition revenue will go. “We don’t even know at this point, really,” said Lynch. “We might gold-plate the auditorium or something like that – something that will really benefit the kids here and make their college experience even better.”